this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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Meta just announced that they are trying to integrate Threads with ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, etc.). We need to defederate them if we want to avoid them pushing their crap into fediverse.

If you're a server admin, please defederate Meta's domain "threads.net"

If you don't run your own server, please ask your server admin to defederate "threads.net".

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (7 children)

Aside from the "moral" argument, can someone ELI5 what harm can a federated threads.net do on other users (like me) and/or instances?

[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago (2 children)

the general strategie is called "embrace, extend, extinguish". This strat is the reason, why everyone uses MS Office today

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

that reminds me of Apple with iMessage

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

As opposed to Threads stealing all brands companies and users anyway?

There’s still advantages to a fediverse and ways to defend against “embrace extend extinguish” if you plan ahead.

We can’t complain about proprietary networks if we don’t allow others to join our own open ones.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

As opposed to Threads stealing all brands companies and users anyway?

The extend-phase is when people migrate to threads, who would have stayed otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

And why would you expect there to be many such people? I’d assume the intersection of people who like the Fediverse and people who like proprietary social media to be pretty small.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago

Why are people not allowed to do that if they want to?

[–] [email protected] -5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

You think groups that came here largely fleeing Reddit and Twitter are going to be tempted to go to threads? I doubt it very heavily. Threads is more likely to loose people to here if anything.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's not necessarily about a threat to instances or users. It's more an issue with how Meta could potentially hijack the protocol the whole thing is built on, and do damage in the long run. There's a write up here on how similar things have happened in the past;

https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

This is what it's about, right here. I wish more people would understand this. This is not some loose anti-coporate sentiment or senseless alarm sounding. We have example after example of how corporations like Meta, Microsoft, and Google leverage their power to consume and destroy. To say "we just need to be proactive about stopping them" is naive. We've said that so many times, and every time we've lost.

The only way to win is not to play their game. We can't let them in in the first place.

Edit: a word

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You should look into Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. I think the biggest fear is that they have so many users that they will just flood all instances with their stuff. This can, in time, lead to a situation where they can defederate from everything else and bring a lot of people with them, since most of the content will have come from Threads.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

They can absorb large numbers of users and communities and after a while close themselves to the outside. Meaning that once people "need" those communities they'll have no chance other than go threads.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

threads hab more users than fediverse on one instance

is cause centralization

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

I got a number of answers that sound very weak to me, and basically point to a "fail" of the fediverse in its own nature if threads joins. Kind of disappointing.

To me, the key idea of the fediverse is that it's federated and should work as a whole, no matter who joins. Most of the answers below support the opposite. They are basically saying that the fediverse should stay within the "fediverse", which is exactly what non-federated social media are doing. Meh.